


A Clone Problem

by Tezca



Category: Country Music RPF, Doctor Who
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Doctor Who Fusion, Crazy fan, Gen, Time Travel, clone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-30 21:39:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15105380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tezca/pseuds/Tezca
Summary: A crazy fan and a clone, good thing they caught it early enough to not have it be a huge problem.





	A Clone Problem

Jessi walked over to the couch with a washcloth and a first aid kit. Just a couple of minutes earlier, the Colonel and Shooter arrived at the door. They looked all wore out and can use some rest if you asked her. She got the feeling they weren’t put through hell and back exactly, but she can tell that the Colonel obviously got banged up some. And right now they were in the living room. The Colonel sat down on the couch, he’d taken off his shirt earlier due to getting it stained a little with blood. The source of that was easy to find as he had a noticeable wound on the side of his head. Thankfully it wasn’t enough to go to the hospital, but enough that he needed some care. He also felt sore from the bruises he surely gotten over his arms and chest. 

“I’m glad we didn’t have to go to the ERl, only cause I’ll be worried they’ll find out his blood is darker.” Shooter casually admitted as Jessi came up. He corrected himself with an addendum, “And a bit orangey.”

“It’ll be fine as long as they don’t look too closely.” The Colonel assured him as he felt a momentarily stinging sensation from the cool washcloth pressed up against the wound. He winced from the sudden pain.

“What happen to you?” Jessi asked with concern in her voice. Yes the Colonel was centuries older than her, but ever since he met her son, Jessi came to see him as family. Like he was a son from another mother. And yes that felt a bit more complex to think/explain than needed with the fact that he looked like he could be around Shooter’s age, or a little younger give or take.

“I got into a fight ma’am.”

“An epic one.” Shooter emphasized.

“Someone made a clone of your son, ow.” He ended the sentence with a sudden gasp from another painful sting.

This news made Jessi stop for a second to parse the information. Her eyes widen in surprise as she didn’t expect to hear that, “What?!” 

The Colonel faced her with a calm expression on his face, “Don’t worry, we don’t have to worry about it any longer.”

Jessi let out a breath of relief as she resumed fixing up his wound, “That’s good. I just hope y’all fixed it early enough. Who the heck would even do something like that?” She was worried the clone was out and about long enough to hurt Shooter in some way. For her question, the first thing that came to mind was a fan with too much time on their hands.   
__________________

It was a few days prior and he just finished his set at an small inaugural festival in Wyoming. He walked of backstage and joined up with the Colonel to go relax at the hotel while they figured out what to do for the rest of the night. The objective was to go around town and explore a bit. 

Currently the Colonel was on one of the beds in the room, asleep. Shooter is still amazed now and then that Time Lords need little sleep. So many things he can get done if he was able to get by on a hour a sleep every day. Sometimes he wished humans were able to get rested in a hour or so. But it is what it is, and since Shooter didn’t really want to nap right now, he decided to check up on things on his laptop and do a little more work on a minor bug in the work in progress game he is making. 

He was engrossed in concentration, the code was being unneededly stubborn damn it. A small part of him wanted to throw the laptop in frustration, but that would also be insanely stupid to do so and in these said moments, his common sense always won over. It always did kept him from an expensive mistake. But a few seconds later, he got a welcomed reprieve from the problem due to a sudden phone call. It was from his friend Julie Roberts, “Hey Julie, what’s up?”

He noted her tone was animated and excited, which was good to know. Always good to know that you didn’t screw things up and you weren’t aware of it, “Hey Shooter! I just called to square things about the show we’re doing together in Shreveport tomorrow night, do you want to do a duet of Wild and Lonesome?”

While Julie sounded all enthusiastic, all Shooter felt was a strong confusion. He didn’t have any show planned tomorrow. He planned to work on the next album, a sequel of sorts to Black Ribbons that’ll leave everyone minds blown once they listened to it according to his bias expectation, “I don’t...you have a show in Shreveport?” He replied dumbly. That earned a mental facepalm. By now the Colonel had woke up and Shooter put the call on speaker phone.

“Yes of course duh.” Julie teased with a light laugh, “You were the one that came up with the whole idea of you being a surprise guest at one of my shows. We met up the other day over lunch to figure out the details. We decided on tomorrow remember?” 

Ok that was new, he felt like a more pertinent problem had just arrived and his game dev life would just have to wait. On the other hand, he could have let down Julie gently on the fact that it was some mistake. That would be the nice thing to do, but things have gotten complicated since he found out about life beyond Earth. The fact that she apparently met up with him kinda inhibited him to do so, as Julie more likely still think they are the only ones in the universe. Plus that was impossible as he and the Colonel were visiting an arcade place in the past for the afternoon. He got the bad feeling someone impersonated him somehow, “Uhh yeah, yeah I do, sorry memory fart.” 

“So would Wild and Lonesome work? I love that song.” Julie asked, still as excited as before. 

“Yeah, it will. Just have to run a bit of practice.”

“Ok great! Bye Shooter.” 

Shooter replied the same and looked at the Colonel with a deer in the headlights look as Julie hung up. What the fuck just happened? Obviously the planned day was out the window now, and Shooter felt freaked out now, “How the hell was she able to meet with me when we were annihilating each other in Mortal Combat in the 80s!?” He felt bad that Julie got duped, must’ve been a real good actor.

“A clone or a shapeshifter.” The Colonel sat across from Shooter as he replied. He paused for a moment before he finished, “We’ll have to go there and see.”

“Why would anyone want to pretend to be me? I’m annoying haha.” The two laughed casually and the Colonel dismissed his claim. Shooter is far from annoying if you ask him.

The Colonel shrugged, “Any number of reasons, could be a crazy fan of either you, your dad, or both.” He felt like those are among the more educated guesses for this case. If the perpetrator was trying to subtly take over the world or then why choose a musician?

Shooter nodded as he took in the information, ultimately he wanted to see what the hell was going on and stop this as soon as possible, “Should we wait naturally or jump ahead in time?”

The Colonel paused for a second then stood up, he was determined to get to the bottom of this, “There’s only a few hours left in today. Let’s go deal with this before it becomes more of a problem.” He suggested as he stood up. Shooter got what he meant, if this go left unchecked, the imposter could very well damage him financially and career in ways that may be hard and long to fix.

The two packed up their stuff and went back to the Tardis, they jumped forward in time a bit to the specific time and the two were about to leave the ship. The Colonel grabbed a couple of bracelets from one of the nearby rooms and handed one to Shooter, “They are suppose to make us invisible.”

“Sweet dude.” Shooter beamed at the idea, it had been a while since they were invisible. The last time they may or may have not used it to sneak into a sold out wrestling show. 

“They are pretty cool, this is just so we minimize any awkwardness with others inside considering. Plus it’ll be easy to sneak backstage.” The Colonel pointed out with a smile. The two put them on and activated them before they headed out of the Tardis. They walked up to the front door and they didn’t have to wait too long to go in. Some fans came not to long after and opened the door, that is when they made their move to go inside. 

Shooter knew the reason they were here, but that didn’t stop him from getting a kick out out of the whole invisible deal. The people weren’t able to hear them either so Shooter wanted to have some fun with it, but he was here on important saving the world business. Ok, maybe not of that magnitude, but they were there to prevent some kinda shit. 

They wandered into the crowd of people in front of the stage, it was towards the halfway point of the show when Julie stop and announced the special, surprise guest. Shooter’s eyes widen when the imposter walked out on stage, is it bad that he felt sorta annoyed that the other him wore a shirt he won’t wear, “Holy shit! Two questions, that clone or whatever looks freakishly like me and two, what the hell is he wearing?” It was surreal as fuck to watch yourself in a way play up on stage in real time. 

The Colonel motioned at Shooter to follow him and he led the way through the crowd to the front of the stage, or at least one row behind. It looked even more freaky to see the lookalike more up close. A sonic screwdriver was taken out and the Colonel gave the imposter a quick scan over. He may have an idea on what it could be if it wasn’t a shapeshifter.

“Well it ain’t an alien,” The Colonel simply stated as he looked at the little screen then at Shooter, “The clone is from here.” He pocketed the sonic screwdriver away.

“He’s from Earth?!” He gestured at the clone. It was more out of an exclamation then geinuene confusion.

“Yep. Probably a Ganger from the future.” He answered while he took another look up on the stage. He had to respect the attention to detail, yet at the same time he understandably felt a little weirded out. He’ll get over it enough. 

“What’s a Ganger?” 

“Short for doppelgänger. I read about them when I was searching for a good point in time to start living on Earth.”

“I still would’ve guessed you’d picked the 70s.” Shooter casually laughed. They watched the show for a brief moment, the two singers on stage started to sing their duet.

“Part of me wanted to, but I wanted to witness first hand the advancement of humanity in a relatively short piece of time. Plus the Old West is cool.”

Shooter laughed with a smile, “Can’t argue with that.” He had his look directed at the stage for a second longer before he turned his head to the Colonel, “So what’s our next move Jon?”

“Well this ganger of yours looks like a carbon copy of you, which makes me think he came from a point in the future when they gained sentience and became independent.”

“Oh.”

“So the real question is, why is he here? We should look for any kinda clue/” The Colonel pointed out, and before Shooter had a chance to reply, the former headed right for the stage and climbed up. Shooter felt momentarily freaked out as he expected people to notice him, and then carted out by security. None of that happened though. The Colonel called out to him, “Come on Shooter, we’ll get to backstage quicker this way.”

Shooter looked around first and realized no one seemed to act like something out of the ordinary is going on. They still moved their arms around as they sang along to the beat. It appeared that he, for a second, blanked out on the fact that they were invisible, thus no one can’t see them. He followed him and the Colonel helped him up.

A part of Shooter still felt like they were going to be noticed anytime now despite knowing the contrary. It was pretty damn cool to be up on stage like this on the other hand. He got a kick out of how everyone on stage didn’t noticed him, he can do anything and everyone would still go on. Like if he took off his shirt, or he danced on stage to the beat of the music, or something equally as funny. He didn’t do either of those things, and instead he followed the Colonel backstage to the dressing room. 

Inside they started to look around for anything that suggested that the clone was in contacts with someone. They searched around for about 5 minutes before Shooter stumbled onto his phone. Or what looked like his phone for this time period as it looked like your standard 21st century iphone, “He’s from the future and yet he has a iphone 6.” Shooter observed with a slight chuckle. 

“Gotta give them credit then for being attentive to the details, I’ve ran into some people from the future that thought nothing will happen if they used their futuristic phone out in the open in this time period.” The Colonel added with a light laugh.

The Colonel leaned over his shoulder as Shooter tried to get in, but was stopped by the password screen. Luckily, the sonic screwdriver was able to unlock it and Shooter went to the contact list,, “There’s only one dude in here.”

The Colonel took the phone to get a look at it himself, “That could be the person he is in contact with.” He mentioned as a suggestion and Shooter waited with bated curiosity as he waited to hear if there was any nefarious plot behind all this. However, he noticed that as the Colonel looked and read the text messages, the expression on his face was more pity and sympathy for the clone, as well as enough annoyance towards the contact..

“What do those texts say?”

“The clone of yours is being lied to.” The Colonel replied with a bit of a sigh. There was a little moment of silence before he added, “And he seemed to be pretty much innocent.” He got the vibe that the clone was nothing more than a hopeful, innocent musician..

“Really?”

The Colonel nodded and answered,, “It sounds like all he wanted was to make music and shit. The guy he talked to, his name is listed as Toby Richardson, got him thinking that everything would be just fucking swell.” He finished it off with sarcasm and a roll of his eyes. Shooter, meanwhile, took the phone to get a look at it himself. Apparently this Richardson dude told his clone that he could have a taste of the music life in the current year and that the real Shooter knew about this and didn’t mind him pretending to be him.

While Shooter browsed through the text messages, the Colonel paced around aimlessly in a circle. He mulled over the situation, there had to be more going on here, otherwise it won’t make much since. Why would someone from the future come to the past to get a taste of the rock star life? He’d been to the future plenty of times to know they can easily try it out then. Hell it’s probably easier to give it a test run in the future due to virtual reality machines and whatnot.

He stopped for a second with his back towards Shooter before he whirled around to the front, “There’s more shit going on here. There has to be Shooter, they could’ve done this kinda shit back in the 52nd century. Why would Mr. Richardson bring himself and the ganger back in time to now?”

Shooter thought on it for a few second then shrugged, “Maybe they thought it would be easier cause I existed at this time?”

“Hmm, there’s still a risk of getting caught. People are gonna eventually realize there is something weird going on with two of you running around. Plus more of a chance of the real thing finding out, in this case us.”

“Good point.”

“We have to search for a clue or two. The messages mentioned a bus, so we could search there, and then confront them.” The Colonel stated.

“Alright sounds like a plan dude.” Shooter agreed with a confident voice as he followed the Colonel out the door.

About 5 minutes passed so far as they searched through the tour bus for something like a computer (They figured that is the most likely.place for Mr Richardson to write up a plan) They also got a reminder that looks can deceive as the outside looked good enough. Like they bought a relatively recently model of a tour bus and that was in presentable enough shape on the outside. But the inside told a different story, as there was paper and clutter laying around. And it looked like the inside hasn’t had its looks updated between 10 and 20 years. 

“I think they tried to keep up appearance in this era I’ll give them that, but it’s completely outdated as shit.” The Colonel mentioned as Shooter just found a futuristic looking computer in the backroom. Turned out they didn’t even bother to disguise or hide some of the non time appropriate electronics.

Shooter agreed with that notion, “Hey Jon I found the computer!” He handed it over to the Colonel and he sat down on the bed. It was definitely painfully obvious to him that it came from the future. 

“Great!” He said as he opened up the laptop after he sat down on the bed.

Shooter stood in front of the Colonel as the desktop appeared on the screen. The picture of Waylon was obviously the only familiar part of the tech. There was he was up on stage with the guitar, long hair and beard. He watched him for a second before he decided to give his email a check. The Colonel alerted him to something only a moment later, “I think we found something promising…” He stated cautiously as he started to read through it. Shooter abandoned his phone and kept his gaze on the Colonel who skimmed thru the whole document. 

It was apparently 10 pages long that can be easily summed up as a crazy fan who didn’t like the way Shooter’s makes his music. And unfortunately it was more than that too, apparently Mr. Richardson didn’t think his music lived up to the Jennings name and did his dad a disservice. He took it upon himself to “fix the situation” so he somehow made a ganger of Shooter Jennings (the Colonel decided to spare Shooter the details) to really have him simply pretend to be him and record an album or two. Toby convinced him that everything would be just fine to practice his skills and see what he stood. Apparently the clone took him at this word that he’ll take care of logistics and whatnot. 

Shooter can get the vibe his friend was more on the mad side of things when the Colonel closed the laptop with a sudden noise and set it aside. He stood up and simply stated calmly but with with anger bridled underneath his voice, “I’m gonna confront that musically narrow minded asshole! That idiot basically thinks you ain’t even fit to carry your dad’s shoes!” He explained before half stomped out of the tour bus. Shooter was left behind somewhat confused as he watched the Colonel go back into the bar hell bent on the task on hand. 

Wait what? What did the Colonel find in there exactly he wondered. Ok so from what little he just hear, he inferred that the fake manager was one of those fans. A subset of his dad’s fans that both bought into the the whole outlaw mysticism too much, and take it too seriously to obnoxious levels. Didn’t help that some of those types had anger issues, especially when drunk. 

Shooter stood there in the middle of the hallway as he tried to figure out what to do, should he go in and help? Should he confront the clone or is now not exactly the right time? Maybe it wasn’t since he could be in there with other people that think he is him. He didn’t want to cause anything more than needed, this felt like one of those deals that would be best dealt with privately. With that settled, he decided to satisfy his curiosity and take a look at the document to see what exactly pissed off the Colonel. He settled on the little table in the kitchen area after he grabbed the laptop.

However he didn’t get a chance to read much of it as 5 minutes later he saw said crazy fan run out of the bar, past the window of the (fake) tour bus followed by the Colonel. He also didn’t expect Sensing some shit was about to happen, he abandoned the laptop and went outside. Besides there is a chance the guy could turn around to get on here, and he wanted to avoid any potential bad confrontation with the crazy fan from the future. He ran after the Colonel down the street, and he saw the future dude (Toby right?), further down the street.

He followed the Colonel down two blocks straight down from where the bar was at and down a left corner. Shooter had to muster all the willpower he could to keep up and not be left in the dust. Dang Time Lords and their superhuman strength. By now the Colonel a little further ahead than him, he closed up on some space between him and the crazy fan. To be honest he guessed the Colonel held back on the speed just a little bit given how there were enough people around them that he may not wanted it to look too out of place. He knew he could run faster than this if he put his mind completely to it.

The crazy fan eventually took a right into an alleyway so the Colonel disappeared into the same place. Luckily he wasn’t so far as to be out of sight, and that the sidewalk wasn’t crowded with people so thus he was able to see him.good enough. It was another minute or two before he reached it. A part of him wanted to rest and catch his breath, but this was something he felt he probably shouldn’t waste time with a brief second or two to rest. He entered the alleyway and rounded a corner to find a white futuristic dome like machine that looked like it can be a space pod from a sci fi movie.

Both the Colonel and Toby yelled at each other and it was plain to see that they were in a struggle. The latter tried to get the thing to work while the Colonel tried to prevent that. Shooter only stool in place for a brief moment before he moved in to help his friend. 

The fan moved his hand around the dashboard in an attempt to activate the time machine. In between the chaos and his mashed attempts at the buttons (about 30 seconds later), he managed to start the process of time travel and the Colonel caught it in enough time to pull Shooter inside the capsule before the door closed. The machine whirred and the Colonel held Shooter tightly as they felt some rough turbulence through the vortex.. 

The machine landed with a thud and the doors opened, the fan quickly scurried out and the Colonel yelled after him, “Hey get back here!” Shooter quickly got out the door and the Colonel followed and made a beeline after him.

“I’m not gonna fucking let you get away with this stupid, inane plan of yours!” The Colonel shouted. Yeah he definitely pissed.

“Try me! I’m just doing all of country music a favor!” Toby yelled back before he took off again. 

“Oh what favor?!” The Colonel yelled back and took off after him. Shooter wanted to run after as well, but his body screamed for a moment of rest. He did begin to move, but he quickly felt the kind of side aches you get when you exercise your legs too hard. Fuck, he didn’t want to lose site of the Colonel, so he watched the direction where he ran in. He eventually disappeared into a building thankfully not to far from him. 

He looked around, it looked like they were in an affluent looking area that was futuristic, and not a lot of people around. He had a good feeling they were in the future, he just wondered if they were in a future version of Nashville or some other place. He just didn’t know for sure if they were 5000 years or so, give or take a century or two. 

It would be easy to figure that out and Shooter peeked inside the machine at the little screen on the dashboard. Well apparently instead of his initial guess, they went 50,000 years into the future. He mentally exclaimed with a ‘Holy shit!’, though it wasn’t entirely unexpected given the insane fake manager just haphazardly pressed random buttons. At the same time however, 50,000 years into the future is cool to see. Too bad he had to see this point of time under a crazy situation.

Afterwards, Shooter ran at a steady pace towards the direction he saw his friend go in. He appeared to have lost sight of him, which was not good at all, so he looked around. There didn’t seem to be anything special anything going on, just people on the sidewalk going about their business in and out of stores. Just seemed like the area was a busy shopping district or something. Same kinda basic deal as back home, just obviously different time periods. And there was hover cars and everything which was fucking cool.

He hoped he can find them fairly soon, he more than kinda dreaded the prospect of having to ask a stranger if they saw his friend run through here. There was enough people around him to make him feel a little out of place. Which admittedly sounded silly since this is Earth, but the key difference is, he was in the far future. “Jon! Hey Jon! Colonel!” Shooter called out all around him. 

Wait, Shooter stopped to think on things a little bit. Wouldn’t this not be too helpful at the moment? If only cause it definitely looked like the Colonel was pissed off enough to not realized quickly that he ain’t there. Time Lord rage was an interesting thing.to behold, (and frightening for anyone on the wrong end of it). 

Shooter ended up having to tell himself to suck it up a bit and actually ask someone if he had any chance of finding the Colonel anytime soon. So here he was, walked into a nearby clothing store and walked up to the women behind the counter, “Hey..” Let’s see if he can do this without too much dialogue. 

The young women gave the sort of friendly smile cashiers usually give to customers. Some things thankfully stayed the same he observed,, “Hey, you need help finding something?”

“No. I was just looking for someone, have you seen a guy about yay high, curly hair and looks like he came from the 1970s?” Shooter kept his hands in his pockets except only to illustrate how tall the Colonel was.

“1970s, that’s an interesting choice of attire,” She lightly joked, Shooter didn’t expect anyone here to know what he meant exactly, “My friend into the history of clothes and how it looked in different points of time. But I don’t know the answer just based of off that, but I did see one guy being chased by another, they ran past us several minutes ago. The second guy had curly hair, but I can’t tell you where they headed towards. Sorry.”

“That’s ok, thanks anyways.” Shooter gave a polite nod and left. Well that was a fail and it ended up a waste of time. Still, gotta give him credit for trying. He walked down a bit in the same direction before he felt like he had a enough energy to run. His luck turned in the next few seconds as he saw the fan run his way down a ways and into building, that looked more abandoned compared to the rest of the area, down two blocks. He noticed the Colonel followed in afterwards and that was when Shooter took off on a dash to join him.

Shooter entered what looked like what used to be an warehouse (now its all empty as the day is long), just in time to hear the Colonel yell, “Alright, you damn well know this plan of yours won’t really work, you are a delusional idiot!” He can hear the Colonel’s native Gallifreyan accent shine through more than the Kentucky accent he uses on Earth. Yep, the Colonel was definitely that pissed off now.

“Oh me delusional? That’s funny of you to accuse me of that! I can tell you the numbers of fans who are sick of the so called music Waylon Jennings’ son makes!”

“And I can tell you the numbers of fans to prove that you are an utter twat! You just want things to stay the same don’t you?”

“You don’t get it don’t you!? He had sullied the legacy of his father-“

The Colonel cut him off, “He ruined nothing! His father would be proud of the music he created! If Waylon was here he would be pissed at you!” Shooter had to admire how calm the Colonel is right now while his anger still seeped through. He thought they’ll duke it out by now. That and how much of a loyal friend he is.

“And you’re so sure on that?” Toby started to chuckle in a more condescending manner and shook his head a bit, “I pity you youngins, you haven’t lived long enough to realize what is truly good music.”

“Youngin?....How old do you think I am?”

“30?” Toby said dumbly. Shooter giggled to himself.

“Heh dude, how much more wronger can you fucking get! I’m damn well older than you. Let me put it this way, I’m old enough to know music change with new influences and innovations over time as the years goes by as society gets more advanced and young artists create their own music the way they want which is something you clearly don’t understand! You know you actually fucking remind me of the Time Lords back on Gallifrey, all boring and narrow minded!” The Colonel bluntly shouted, “You just want all of Shooter’s music to sound exactly like his dad’s!”

“Which is why I’m doing what I’m doing with that clone of Shooter I made. I want the world to know he is truly keeping the spirit of the outlaw movement alive and making great authentic music in this sea of mediocre noise they call country music nowadays. Something that his dad and his fans would be proud of.”

The Colonel rolled his eyes, these types always annoyed him. They just take everything about the outlaw movement too damn seriously. They’ve easily bought into the image the marketers perpetrated and just can’t get it through their thick skull that the outlaw shit was nothing but a marketing tool. Nothing more, “His dad would be proud of him no matter what he did or what music he made! Just fucking admit it, you just want him to be a carbon copy of Waylon! What you’re doing with your stupid plan I can guarantee you Waylon would be pissed at you!” 

By now, all Shooter heard was the thuds and punches as the two dueled it out. He was a few feet away on the sideline as he watched. The Colonel and Toby wrestled around on the floor eventually, at one point Toby pinned the Colonel down on the floor. It looked like Toby was about to choke him so Shooter made his move and tackled Toby to the ground. 

Toby instead gripped Shooter’s neck, he was about to say something to him when the Colonel charged full speed ahead and tackled him off of Shooter by a good few feet away into the ground near a pillar. The Colonel pulled Toby up and rammed him into the wall and they started to go at it once more. Shooter meanwhile laid on his back for a few seconds to catch his breath before he sat up to watch the fight. He had no doubt the Colonel will win this one. A human and a Time Lord in a fight will come out in favor of the latter due to superior strength and more resilience. 

That didn’t mean they were infallible or anything. Shooter just watched Toby rammed the Colonel rammed the side of his head onto the pillar. Shooter cringed at the pain he imagined. But the Colonel quickly got the upper hand and repaid the favor. Shooter got up as he saw the Colonel put his hand on Toby’s head and the latter eventually fell to the floor. 

“What did you do?” Shooter asked as he walked up, merely curious. He can also see that the Colonel now sported a medium to small sized wound that bled a little bit on the side of his head, he looked alright enough, but shit they could both use some rest. He also wasn’t sure if he just made Toby fall asleep or wiped some memory from him. The former sound better than the latter for this kind of stuff. 

The Colonel had to pause to take a few breaths before he replied. “He’s asleep, he’ll be fine.” He started to look around the building, “I don’t want him to continue being a problem, so I thought we can call the cops on him. That’ll definitely keep him out of our hair.”

Shooter mulled on it for a few seconds before he pointed out, “It’s 50,000 years into the future, that alone may already be too much.”

That caught his attention away from the still mild throbbing pain from the wound, “Wait 50,000 years?!” The Colonel didn’t really think what period in the future they were in exactly until now. He was too busy trying to catch the guy.

“I looked on the screen in the time machine thing back there.”

“Shit, I want to give him some kinda punishment, not render him completely broke and alone. I want to be humane about this, a hell of a lot can happen in 50,000 years.” He was right, the amount of years on top of his idea would be a little too cruel in a way. He wanted him to get justice served to him yeah, but he didn’t want the punishment to be unjustified for the crime. He can’t let his emotions take over his rational side. The Colonel looked around, the warehouse looked like it was once some kinda technology lab.

“I getcha, shades and hues huh?”

“Yeah. I was thinking two or three years from the year he came from.” The Colonel spotted a door in the distance.

Shooter nodded, that felt enough to deter him from trying anything like this again. Maybe between 1 and 3. He too spotted what the Colonel had his eyes on, “Anyone should be able to get a time travel bracelet if they passed some strict tests by now, we can look and see if there is one left behind.” The Colonel suggested and they started to walk. 

The door opened to a hallway that had some other doors connected to small labs. This hallway led to another corridor that had offices and a conference room here and there. Shooter was curious enough to peek down the other hallway while the Colonel got one of the doors opened.

20 minutes later they found one that was good enough to get the job done so they ran back over to where the Colonel left Toby at. The latter got it to work again with the sonic screwdriver and put it on Toby’s wrist, “Alright I’ll set a different city on Earth and 2 years from whenever he came from.”

“Maybe one year be enough along with the different city idea. One year and a half?” Shooter suggested and the Colonel faced him attentively, “And we tell the clone everything and we offer to take him to a different human colony or something.”

“Hmm, I like that.” The Colonel smiled satisfied and set up the bracelet before he backed him and Shooter away a few feet. That would suck if they were caught within the radius when the bracelet activated and they were whisked away along with him. Now it was just the matter of getting back to the time machine they traveled in..  
_________________________

After everything was all said and done, the Colonel laid down on the couch to rest as per Jessi’s orders. Shooter came back with some movies from the Tardis, there was a remake of the Back to the Future movies in the 36th century apparently that he wanted to check out. And Jessi came back with some of her homemade snacks and drinks for the boys.

Jessi set the stuff down on the table before she faced the two with a question that lingered a bit after the story, “Whatever happened to the clone?”

“Oh we took him back to his original time. Set him in another planet that had a human colony though, his idea, but there is a huge music scene there so it works out well for him.” The Colonel answered, and Jessi gave a smile.

‘That’s nice. I don’t know how’ll I react if there was a clone of me.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that now. Earth ain’t at that point yet.” The Colonel answered.

“That’s, probably for the best.” Jessi still wasn’t sure what to think of clones just in general but she didn’t want to think too much on it right now, “I think….did y’all have to tell Julie?” Jessi questioned as Shooter got the dvd ready before he got comfy on the other end of the couch, (they can thank the Colonel too for making their dvd player compliant with future dvds).

The Colonel shook his head a bit as he faced her, “Oh no we didn’t have to, we both felt real bad for her just the same so Shooter offered her to come along as a surprise guest in his next show.”

“Oh, that’s very nice of you.” Jessi complimented. Shooter has always been a very nice person, she felt proud of how she and Waylon raised him, “Anyways, you two take it easy and feel free to stay the night. I gotta go do something in town, but I’ll bring takeout for dinner.”

“We will, thanks mom.”


End file.
